Secrets of the Italian Guesthouse (The Italian Legacy #1)

Prologue

Sixteen years ago, Pensione Three Sisters, Via Bianchi Giovini, Como, Lombardy, Italy

Jade Beretta set a pillow on the bed in one of the Pensione Three Sisters’ guestrooms. ‘I’ll be here to get the breakfasts tomorrow, Gran.’ At twenty-three, Jade felt no need to add, after I’ve spent the night with Leo.

Mairead, her feisty, funny, irreverent grandmother, was slighter and shorter than Jade, with a dandelion clock of white hair above blue eyes that looked as if they’d seen a lot and enjoyed most of it. She was also cheerfully direct, having cared for Jade because her parents couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

‘No doubt you’ll be with young Leo Sartori?

He puts the “handsome” in “tall, dark and handsome”, that one.

No wonder you saw him with fresh eyes when he came back to Como taller and better-looking than ever.

So I tell Sheenagh.’ Though, at sixty-nine, Mairead was older than Leo’s mother, Sheenagh, by nearly twenty years, they’d long ago bonded over being Scottish women married to Italian men within Como’s busy hotel industry.

‘Gran!’ Jade’s cheeks flamed, though she absolutely would be meeting Leo at his tiny apartment above a shop selling buttery-soft leather handbags when he came off duty.

‘Sheenagh’s thrilled you two are an item, because it’s kept him working at Villa Panorama for two years,’ Mairead continued unabashed.

Sheenagh and Ferdinando owned Villa Panorama, an apricot-coloured hotel with its own gardens on the east shore of the lake.

Until nine years ago, it had belonged to Mairead and Jade’s grandfather, Rocco Beretta.

Then Nonno Rocco had died, when Jade was fourteen years old.

Mairead, overwhelmed by grief, and caring for a heartbroken teenager, hadn’t wanted solo responsibility for the large hotel and its enormous mortgage.

She’d downsized to Pensione Three Sisters in the historic centre, with its steep terracotta roof and black wrought-iron balconies, and painted the exterior a delicate rosebud pink.

Jade had been glad Gran hadn’t wanted to return to her native Isle of Mull, which she’d always found beautiful for visits, but rural after busy, colourful Como and short on sunshine.

Patting a honey-coloured cushion into place on the snowy pillows, Jade turned the subject away from sexy, sweet, edgy Leo with the grey-blue eyes he’d inherited from Sheenagh.

‘We’ve done well this morning, even with Vittoria and Carlotta off with the summer flu.

I’m glad you didn’t catch it.’ Jade reached for the long-handled mop used for buffing floor tiles.

‘Why don’t you go down to cover Reception while Gabriella’s on her break?

’ She was deliberately tempting Gran into a more restful job.

Bed-changing and cleaning robbed her grandmother of breath, while Jade just considered them part of long, energetic days.

‘Aye, OK. I can listen for the bell while I get our lunch,’ Mairead agreed. Reception duties meant interacting with people, one of Gran’s favourite occupations. If guests chose a pensione for local colour, she was delighted to provide it.

Jade watched her grandmother’s little figure bustle from the room towards the staircase with its gracious wrought-iron bannisters, then shoved back her long, curly ponytail and threw herself into servicing the remainder of the guest-rooms. She finished at 1.

30 p.m. and dropped the used bedding into a chute to a utility area, ready for the laundry service.

As she skimmed down the staircase of honey-coloured marble, Mairead’s voice floated up to her from Reception. ‘Pensione Three Sisters dates from the seventeenth century. We have a ghost. A local nobleman’s said to have died here after a duel over a beautiful lassie.’

Jade sighed as she reached the airy lobby and turned towards the polished walnut reception desk beneath the twinkling crystal chandelier.

Luckily, the guest, a woman in her fifties wearing red sandals and creased shorts, was grinning.

‘There was no ghost mentioned on your website.’ She sounded English.

Jade sent Gran a reproving look. ‘Because we don’t have one.’

Mairead’s eyes brimmed with mischief. ‘Or he’s learnt to steer clear of guest bedrooms. Mostly.’

The guest exchanged laughing glances with Jade before leaving through the glass double doors and under a square arch to the sunny street, framed for a moment against the opposite building, butter-yellow with dusky blue shutters and balcony railings.

Jade hugged Gran. ‘Finished scaring our clientele?’

‘Just about,’ Mairead replied solemnly as she hopped from her stool. ‘I’m hungry and Gabriella will be back any moment.’

Behind the desk, the door to their apartment was marked both Privato in Italian and Private in English.

Pensione Three Sisters operated in both languages and Jade spoke English with Gran Mairead’s musical west Scotland accent, and Italian with that of Lombardy.

She had the Italian surname of Beretta like Nonno .

. . or, rather, Jade’s absent father, Giovanni ‘Joey’ Beretta.

As per the Italian norm, Mairead kept the name she was born with: Campbell.

In the kitchen, the BBC World Service played on the radio.

In contrast to the pensione’s stainless-steel catering kitchen where they prepared guests’ breakfasts, the apartment kitchen was a cosy cucina rustica with ceiling beams, its wooden cabinets topped with worn white marble, marine-blue tiles surrounding an open hearth and traditional oven.

Mairead took rolls from the black iron oven, singing, ‘Food’s ready,’ as she had so often in Jade’s lifetime.

Jade sniffed appreciatively at the aromas of provolone cheese, onions and hot rolls, then seated herself at the scrubbed wooden table before a bowl of salad leaves and a smaller one of tomatoes with basil.

Lunch was a relaxed meal, whereas breakfast was snatched before catering to the guests.

Breaking open the first roll, crusty on the outside and moist and soft within, she took the first delicious, yeasty bite.

‘I’ll make bread dough this afternoon and leave it to prove till morning.

’ That would complete her main tasks for the day, other than welcoming any arriving guests.

And admin. Everlasting admin. Gabriella performed the routine stuff, but Jade had taken over most of Three Sisters’ management.

Gran made tea in a pot and then poured two cups. She took a seat opposite her granddaughter. ‘I was listening to the radio a few days ago.’

Jade glanced towards the red, traditional radio on the windowsill by the white pot sink. ‘You? Listen to the radio?’ she joked. Mairead kept sets in the kitchen, lounge and her bedroom.

But for once Gran’s blue eyes were serious. ‘It was a talk about Italian inheritance law. It got me thinking.’ She frowned down at the vibrant red tomato she’d placed on her plate. ‘Joey’s the problem, you see.’

Jade sprinkled her salad leaves with oil. ‘No surprise there.’ To her, her father was no more than a young face on old photographs. Her grandmother’s heart might ache for him, as had Rocco’s, but Jade’s heart dipped whenever she heard his name.

Gran smiled wistfully and her Scots accent thickened. ‘Joey was an irresponsible teenager; Geneva was a young, bored, married woman – and neither of them was fit to bring up the bairn they made.’

Though she and Mairead rarely discussed it, Jade knew the story of eighteen-year-old Joey Beretta leaving Como rather than face up to having got someone else’s wife pregnant.

And how Geneva, after later giving birth to Jade, had promptly moved away with a young husband prepared to forgive her affair .

. . providing she left baby Jade behind.

Jade had no idea where either parent might be now.

She scorned those who’d abandoned her as much as she adored the grandparents who’d given her a home in the beautiful city of Como, full of traditional buildings painted in pearly pastel colours.

She never referred to Joey and Geneva by anything but their given names, and hadn’t even seen a photo of Geneva.

But if Gran wanted to talk about her son, she should be allowed the opportunity.

Lightly, Jade asked, ‘Is Joey any more responsible now he’s over forty? ’

‘I see no signs of it in his emails,’ Mairead said wryly.

‘Sometimes he only answers mine with fine, thanks or OK, Mum.’ She shook her head.

‘Some folks have learning difficulties, but my son has living difficulties. He’s different.

I believe he was sent by the fairies, because he shares all their wild, wandering ways. ’

Jade smiled, as she knew she was meant to. ‘I’m sure nobody else’s grandmother talks about ghosts and fairies like you do. Is it one of your flights of fancy that Geneva fell under his spell?’

‘Maybe.’ Mairead’s eyes twinkled. ‘With two wild parents, it’s a miracle you’re so steady. I was telling Sheenagh last week how hard you work at Three Sisters and how much you love Como.’

‘Unlike Joey and Geneva,’ Jade replied. Being unlike her irresponsible parents was an aim with her.

‘Aye.’ Mairead fidgeted with her fork, the engraved design worn over years of use. ‘But I sometimes wish you’d send a wee message to Joey.’

Indignant, Jade dropped her spoon. ‘Why the hell would I? He never wanted me and he never asks after me. Sod him.’ Seeing Mairead flinch unhappily, she softened her tone.

‘I was upset when he didn’t come back for Nonno’s funeral, but I was upset for you.

For me, facing the father who preferred a lifetime of drifting to visiting me even once would have only made the day worse.

And later, when you realised Villa Panorama was too much for you to run alone, Joey left you to it. He literally doesn’t care.’